Paul Ryan's Theatrical Budget Preview Warns of Coming Debt Crisis

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., previewed the release of the House Republican's budget proposal with a dramatic and somewhat ominous video warning of a coming debt crisis for the nation.

The video features Ryan, who gained national notoriety for drafting the House GOP's 2012 budget proposal, walking down the dimly-lit halls of Congress as he stares into the camera and discusses the beginnings of the 2008 financial crisis.

You know, I was here -- in Congress -- in 2008 when we had the economic crisis, Ryan said. It was a terrible time. Millions of people lost their jobs. Trillions of dollars of wealth: gone. That crisis caught us by surprise.

As a foreboding musical score reaches a crescendo, Ryan seems outraged as he equates the beginning of the 2008 financial crisis with what he called the coming debt crisis, calling it the most predictable crisis to ever strike the U.S.

What if your president, your senator and your congressman knew it was coming? What if they knew when it was going to happen, why it was going to happen, and more importantly, what if they knew what they needed to do to stop it from happening and they had the time to stop it, but they chose to do nothing about it, because it wasn't good politics? What would you think of that person? It would be immoral, Ryan decries. This is why we're acting. This is why we're leading. This is why we're proposing and passing from the House a budget to fix this problem. So we can save this country, for ourselves and for our children's future.

The video, ending on a cliffhanger, closes out with a shot of Ryan turning into a room and sitting in front of another camera to presumably announce his budget proposal to the nation.

Ryan is expected to unveil the budget plan -- once again called The Path to Prosperity -- on Tuesday. The plan will reportedly slash the 2013 agency budgets below the levels set during last year's debt-limit negotiations, including Medicare, a move that has already been criticized by Democrats.

Ryan and House Republicans are responsible for getting our country into this debt crisis and now want seniors to be the first to sacrifice to get us out, Jesse Ferguson, a spokesman for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said in a statement released Thursday night.